Six property managers, two HVAC technicians, a plumber and 20 seasonal groundskeepers. Those are among the 39 new jobs Mayor Justin Elicker and Schools Superintendent Madeline Negrón want to add so New Haven Public Schools can handle its own building repairs.
The two announced the plan Monday, Oct. 19, at a press conference at Truman School, according to the New Haven Independent and the New Haven Register. The cost would come to $1,348,710 for the rest of this fiscal year and $2,189,000 for a full year. The money still needs approval from the Board of Alders.
Two planning documents from the announcement, a list of proposed positions and a new organizational chart (both posted by the Independent), show every proposed job, which union it would fall under and what it would cost. Here is what is in the plan and what happens next.
Why now
For years the district relied on ABM Industry Groups, a private company, to manage school facilities. That contract ended Sept. 30, the Independent reported, and it cost $1,997,816 last fiscal year for 14 management positions.
Since then, pressure over school conditions has kept building. Students, staff, the New Haven Federation of Teachers and the Board of Alders Education Committee have pointed to broken heating and cooling, mold, leaks and pests. In an Oct. 9 letter, the committee asked for 16 fixes, including a public repair dashboard and a clear organizational chart showing who is responsible for each problem. The Courier covered those demands here.
The plan released Monday includes that chart.
Every new job in the plan
The “Proposed New Facility Positions” sheet lists 19 full-time jobs and 20 seasonal ones. The dollar figures are the budgeted amounts on the sheet:
- Executive Director, Infrastructure & Operations: $180,000
- Building Trades Supervisor: $122,000
- Facilities Project Manager: $115,000
- Six Property Managers: $96,000 each
- Plumber, two HVAC Techs and a Controls Tech: $92,000 each
- Executive Admin Assistant: $70,000
- Lead Groundskeeper: $70,000
- Four Groundskeepers: $62,000 each
- 20 Seasonal Groundskeepers, 10 for spring and 10 for fall: $22,000 each
The sheet groups the jobs into four full-time senior management and support positions, plus 15 full-time and 20 seasonal site-based workers. The full-time trade jobs fall under bargaining units 3144, 777 and 287, according to the sheet. The executive director is listed as “EM.” The seasonal jobs have no union.
One manager for 39 buildings, or six
The biggest change is in supervision. Right now, all 39 school building managers report to one person, Elicker said, according to the Independent. Under the new org chart, six property managers would each oversee six or seven buildings, and each school is supposed to have its own building manager and assistant building manager.
“You can’t be an expert in 39 schools. You can be an expert in six to seven of them,” City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, who helped design the plan, told the Independent.
Elicker said the property managers and HVAC technicians are among the most urgent jobs to fill. If alders approve the money, the city will still need to work with unions on job descriptions before posting the openings. “We’re hoping that early on next calendar year, we can have some of these positions up and rolling,” he said, according to the Independent.
The chart also puts the work under a Chief of School Operations and the new Executive Director of Infrastructure and Operations. It adds a building trades crew with carpenter, plumbing and electrical foremen, along with a facility asset manager and a facility project manager. The chart sums up the department’s job in three words: maintain, repair, replace.
The money question
The funding for this year would come from a salary reserve in the city budget, money set aside for possible raises from union contracts, the Independent reported. Alders and the mayor put $6,136,131 into that reserve this year.
Elicker also argued that the schools have been underfunded for a long time. He said New Haven spends about $1.70 per square foot on school maintenance, while the industry standard is $3 to $4.50. “Our suburban partners spend almost double what we do per square foot in our schools,” he said, according to the Independent.
Negrón called the plan “just a start.” She said the district plans to apply for grants to repair or replace roofs at Sound School, Fair Haven School and Betsy Ross School, on top of roof and HVAC projects already underway at Truman, Wilbur Cross and Hillhouse.
Vacancies are still a problem
New jobs won’t fix one current gap right away. At the start of the school year, 17 of the 39 building manager jobs were empty, the Independent reported. Under the union contract, those openings have to be filled through internal bidding, so the district first hires “floater” custodians who can then bid on them. Chief of School Operations Paul Whyte, who has been coordinating facilities concerns, said Hillhouse High School does not have a building manager right now, according to the Independent.
Whyte also said the district is working on the public dashboard of work orders that the Education Committee asked for.
What happens next
Education Committee Chair Gary Hogan, the Beaver Hills alder, said Monday that he had not yet seen a concrete version of the plan but supported the idea. “This is a good start for the board of ed and the city to collaborate and put together some funds to increase the number of staff,” he told the Independent.
The budget transfer now goes to the Board of Alders. The Education Committee has already asked the district for a progress report on its 16 demands at its next meeting, Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 6 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chambers at City Hall, 165 Church St.
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